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FIFTY-SECOND CONGRESS, 1891-1893. 1571 
$17,500, these amounts being about one-half those that were submitted to Congress 
as necessary to make preliminary provision for the security and accessibility of the 
collections and to administer their trust with safety to the public. 
The Regents recognized the impossibility of doing this with such means; but, con- 
sidering that the animals were already in the park, in view of this public safety, and 
regarding the act as mandatory upon them, they, with the aid of a balance econo- 
mized in anticipation from the original appropriation made for the organization of 
the park, and a deficiency item of $1,000, to meet urgent needs, have endeavored to 
get through the year until relief could be had from Congress. In doing so they have 
been obliged to reduce the number of watchmen and employees of the park in every 
grade till the public safety threatens to be endangered, while yet a considerable part 
of these watchmen have been called on to labor continuously through Sundays and 
holidays ten to twelve hours a day without extra compensation, and haye in other 
respects felt obliged to carry economy to a degree which would have been unjustifi- 
able, except upon compulsion under such circumstances. 
They would, in their opinion, have been unable to administer the park to the close 
of the fiscal year, even under these conditions, had they not, in view of the emer- 
gency, also given without charge the services of officials and employees paid from 
the private Smithsonian fund. The total expenditure for maintenance during the 
current year may, under these conditions, be expected to be $23,600. These facts 
were represented by them through the Secretary of the Institution in a letter dated 
January 23, 1892, to the Secretary of the Treasury (a copy of which is appended) 
and by him transmitted to Congress. 
For the year 1892-93 the following estimates were sent to the Treasury Department: 
Improvements, $20,000; buildings, $27,000, and maintenance, $26,000. 
In the sundry civil bill (H. 7520) as now reported to the House of Representa- 
tives, there is appropriated for improvements $9,000, for buildings $10,000, and for 
maintenance $10,000; in all, $29,000. If the Regents considered, as they must, $9,000 
as inadequate for a year’s expenditure in laying out the roads and grounds in a new 
park of 167 acres, they yet would not have felt compelled to make this present repre- 
sentation, since such improvements may await the action of a future Congress; but, 
under the appropriation for ‘‘ buildings,’’ the security of the animals must be pro- 
vided for without delay, while under ‘‘ maintenance ’’ come not only their food and 
warmth, but the protection of the public; and that the case of animals which are 
helpless to provide for themselves and dangerous if not guarded can not wait future 
action, has been a pressing consideration to them. 
The Regents think it proper to remark that the roads of the park in the vicinity of 
the cages have been crowded with visitors, to the number of as many as 10,000 in a 
day, before there was time to make any means for the permanent care of the animals, 
or provide proper roads to get to them, even had the means for these been appropri- 
ated, and that there is, in their judgment, every reason to expect during the coming . 
summer the visit of still larger throngs, composed not only of adults but of children. 
The Regents feel desirous to represent that they can not be held responsible for 
the imminent danger which must result, under the contemplated withdrawal even 
of these means for protection which experience has already shown to be absolutely 
insufficient. They would also ask attention to the fact that small as the appropria- 
tion is, it is in several items, and that under no emergency is any discretion allowed 
them as to their relative amounts, although the whole matter of expenditure is here 
for a novel purpose, on which only experience could decide the relative exigency of 
each part. 
If Congress intended that the park must be maintained on the appropriation 
under which the Regents have been unable to administer it the last year (improve- 
ment, $15,000; buildings, $18,000; maintenance, $17,500), they deem it reasonable to 
bring the attention of Congress to the fact that a discretion might properly be exer- 
cised by them as to what proportion they should apply to the imminent needs of the 
